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Genetically Modified Food For You?

Crops which have been Genetically Modified to resist insects kill not just the "target insect" (such as the borer or weevil) but beneficial insects (such as the Monarch butterfly). They also threaten the habitats of other animals, such as birds.
Crops which have been Genetically Modified to resist herbicides encourage the use of larger quantities of herbicide, with the effect that both weeds and beneficial plants are killed indiscriminately. These herbicides are harmful to both the environment and to humans.
Crops which have been Genetically Modified to contain their own insecticide, such as Bt, cause insects to become resistant to the insecticide.
Genetically Modified plants may crossbreed with wild species to produce "superweeds", which cannot be eliminated using standard herbicides.
Genetically Modified plants contaminate conventionally grown and organic plants and honey.
The use of Genetically Modified seed encourages dependence by the farmers on a single seed supplier and may involve the purchase of both the seed and herbicide from one supplier. The farmer is then at the mercy of the seed company who may vary prices of both seed and herbicide at will.
Toxic compounds such as glyphosphate (RoundUp) and Bromoxynil are used on Genetically Modified crops. The US Environmental Protection Agency has approved the use of Bromoxynil despite acknowledging "...serious concerns about developmental risks to infants and children."
The nature of genetic modification and long term effects are not well understood as these products have not been properly tested before being released into the environment. For example, in the USA, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved the use of all currently approved Genetically Modified crops based on data supplied by the manufacturers.
Genetic material inserted into plants can transfer to animals and humans in the intestinal wall

I think that the use of GM food is totally wrong, there should be no place for GM food at all. For the simple reason that we do not know about the long term effects. I for one ALWAYS check on the labels of food I buy to see if there are any GM modified ingredients (though often I wonder if I am eating GM food and just not being told about it).

The US Environmental Protection Agency has approved the use of Bromoxynil despite acknowledging "...serious concerns about developmental risks to infants and children."

GM food is one advance in science we can all do without. The ONLY positive thought I have on GM food is where food is made hardier so that it will grow in more hostile environments - like those in the 3rd world. But like mentioned above, what happens when a new superbug evolves that merrily eats all these GM crops? Antibiotics, insecticides, GM food and the like is not the answer, its polluting the ecosystem and is just stacking up the lists of problems for our future generations.

I personaly think the scariest part is microbes and other nasty organisms can get the modified DNA and take it in (proven fact (lost the url though)) ..
That way the microbes can create defence against medicines and stuff.
Increasing the need for medicine and herbicites/pesticides..

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I also strongly oppose GM crops, one of the benefits of living in the UK is that consumers over here are not easily fobbed off with empty promises that GM won't have any dangers. We burn their fields, we demand labels on foodstuffs saying if it contains any GM ingredients and we don't give two shits what the GM manufacturers try and have us believe, we don't want GM, never did and given a choice never would.

J.

[glowpurple]manually editing your config files can break them. If this happens, you get to keep both pieces. [/glowpurple]

My 2 cents.
As far as I know genetically modified foodstuff cause's superweeds , which is a bad point, but on a high note it could help in harsh climate's & humankind's conquest of space , but i say give them a chance, let them play with genetically modified foodstuff a bit more.

But strict control should be maintained on a high level.
Anyway a lot of people are eating more & more organic foodstuff so genetically modified foodstuff won't control the market.

If you drug something for too long it will build up an imminuty against the drug..... If we keep geneticalli modifying our food against bugs, sooner or later the bugs wont die... They will get stronger... And when those bugs mate, there will be another generation of 'drug-resistant bugs'.

Personally I have no doubts eating GM food. I believe the control routines are good enough in my country. But the market is not going to control itself, so there has to be some kind of limit to what producers are allowed to do.

I think it's great that scientists work on this, because as I see it, GM food is perhaps one of the ways to stop starvation and lack of food in the 3rd world. We should all remember that science should not only be used for profit, but also to the best for human kind. And I think a lot of people seem to have forgot that.

Originally posted by proactive
I think it's great that scientists work on this, because as I see it, GM food is perhaps one of the ways to stop starvation and lack of food in the 3rd world. We should all remember that science should not only be used for profit, but also to the best for human kind. And I think a lot of people seem to have forgot that.

We've already seen GM crops being used in the 3rd world, I remember a story about a GM'd crop that was sold to poor farmers, their usual practice was to buy seeds then replant each year from the same crop, with GM'd seeds, they found that they needed to buy new seed each year (at additional cost) as the 'enhanced' crop was modified not to reproduce.

GM doesn't equal food for all, it equals profit to GM manufacturers at any cost.

jcdux: Well isnīt it kinda positive that the crop canīt reproduce? Donīt get me wrong here, Iīm thinking from the point of view that it wonīt mix with other plants.

Examples of GM mixing with local plants follows:
Denmark, a food plant was engineered to be immune towards a specific pesticide that was causing problems for the farmers. This plant could reproduce and it didnīt take long before the weed surrounding the fields had incorporated the defence against the pesticide and could start spreading again.
The publicly most spread one is the Novartis GM corn in Mexico. Pollen from the GM corn is as we are speaking spreading among the wild corn in central Mexico.

Why is this bad you ask?
Well if you know about dogs or gardening you get a clue. Some races of dogs have been breed so hard that they have problems breathing trough their noses or half the puppies have to be put down because of bones donīt grow like they should. Plants that produce so many flowers that the flower stems canīt bear the weight and so on.

Now we can do these "breedings" that took decades (or even a century) in less than one decade.
With the old way it took a bloody long time and we still made misstakes. No we can make them again but faster and with bigger impact.

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no I'm sorry but I disagree, we in the UK have already seen GM crops germinating with non-GM crops, the example of non-reproducing plants wasn't to highlight how safe these modifications are, it's aimed to highlight that that the GM producers want to make a fast buck with no thought for future problems.

We don't fully understand the dangers of GM crops, but that doesn't stop the manufacturers claiming that they're safe.